


Acid

by hongbab



Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongbab/pseuds/hongbab
Summary: “I’m rotting away anyway,” Hongbin replies desperately. “If I have to die, I want you to be the thing that kills me.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended song: Seal - [Do You Ever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UdFAsrK64k)

_‘Cause all they’ve been doing_  
_Is losing it night and day,_  
_Breaking up is harder_  
_When you have a higher price to pay_

 

 

 

By the time the first few rain drops trickle down from the ends of his hair to the back of his neck, down his spine under his shirt, Hongbin is too far gone to care—or to notice it at all.

He lifts his head that feels like it's full of stone from the tops of his knees, and directs his equally heavy hand to his lips, trying to find them with the mouth of the bottle with his eyes closed, and when he succeeds, he swallows an obscene amount of whisky. It burns his throat, still burns so bad even though he's been through more than half of it—he gags when the liquid slides down his throat. He imagines the alcohol—cheap, bad quality—tearing his insides apart, burning his organs like some kind of strong acid (hydrochloric? sulfuric?), destroying his body until his brain can't function because it has nothing to direct anymore. He giggles to himself at the thought, although he's anything but happy about the fact that it's impossible that such an awful whisky would do that to him. Maybe if he'd bought a better one. Or something worse? Something he doesn't know the ingredients of and may as well be some chemical liquid.

He frowns when he notices the rain falling into the bottle, covers its mouth with the palm of his hand, wondering when and where he lost the cap as he tries to prevent his drink from getting diluted in fear of it becoming less effective if he lets it. 

He's soaked to the bone, shivering wildly by the time he decides it's time to go. His clothes feel weird, his shirt and sweater are sticking to his body uncomfortably as he puts a hand on the wall, taking a deep breath to gain momentum for standing up from the grimy, wet pavement in front of some sort of office building where no one really walks by. His grip on the bottle is strong—the only thing his grip is strong on—, holds it in his hand like that's the only thing that could pull him up from the ground.

What a funny little metaphor.

When he manages to climb onto his feet, he supports himself by the wall, knees buckling helplessly as he takes another sip to be able to start walking. And oh, does it help! He staggers forward, barely seeing anything from his double vision and his black fringe as the pouring rain falls into his eyes.

He follows the memory of his legs that took him to his current destination so many times in the past, doesn't even think about the route, can't even see the street.

While crossing the road at some point, he almost gets run over by a big, shiny car, the owner of which honks his horn angrily after driving past him. Hongbin laughs loudly, drinking again, the laughter almost making him spit out the dear liquid, but he keeps it down and laughs, laughs until he chokes on a sound and can't do anything but whimper, his hot tears mixing with the icy rain on his cheeks.

The receptionist says something to him about sitting down in the hall of the apartment complex before going upstairs, 'until you get a little better', she says, and Hongbin laughs at that, too.

"Do I look like I want to get better?" he asks, or at least tries, but his tongue doesn't work according to his will, making him angry under all the sadness.

He struggles to call the lift, but eventually manages, leaning against the mirror, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply through his nose. Who cares if he throws up inside this fucking lift at all.

The lift stops on the 7th floor, and he looks up, unable to open his eyes more than halfway. He stumbles out, bumping into the walls on the hallway until he reaches the dark wooden door, pressing his free hand on it, trying to knock, but his entire body weight is supported on that one hand. He opts for ringing the doorbell instead, not having to glance at it to find it even in this state. He keeps his finger on the button until his legs give up under him, and he falls to the floor, the bottom of the glass bottle clinking against the tiles. Hongbin drinks again, for good measure, the melody of the doorbell still ringing inside his head.

He doesn't know how long he sits there with his legs curled under him in almost impossible angles, head hanging low, eyes shut tight, his tears seeping out from under his eyelashes like blood from an oozing wound, until the door opens.

There's silence for some time, he doesn't know how long, he's lost his sense of time along with the cap of the bottle. Then, quietly, a voice drifts towards him, asking, "What the fuck? Is this a bum?"

Hongbin would snort at that if he could, but he's half asleep, and thinks he's even forgotten how to breathe, but then he realizes that he's still alive, and that makes him cry harder, a sob bubbling up from his mouth.

"Hongbin," a different, much softer voice says, clenching Hongbin's heart. He's heard his name fall from those lips so many times, heard it, tasted it, felt it on his skin, and now the undertone is close to indecipherable, but if he racks his brains hard enough, he can find pity in it.

He attempts to bring the bottle to his mouth, but all he manages to do is drag it closer to himself, scraping the floor with the bottom.

"You know him?" the first voice asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"He looks pretty sloshed."

"You go back, I'll take care of him."

"Are you sure? He won't attack you or anything, right?"

There's silence again, and then a pair of feet shuffles away. Hongbin finds the strength to finally lift his arm and drink, but as soon as he touches the bottle to his lower lip, it gets yanked out of his hold. His arm falls back on the floor limply.

"Hongbin."

He manages to tip his head up very slowly, opening his eyes until they're only hooded to such extent that he's able to look at Taekwoon's face that's perfectly at eye level.

"Come on," Taekwoon says, stepping out of his apartment to hook an arm around Hongbin's middle, and pull him up on his feet.

He drags Hongbin inside, kicking the door shut, and stepping to the couch, gently pushing Hongbin down. Hongbin watches him step into the kitchen to pour the few drops of leftover whisky into the sink and throw away the bottle right after. He stands above the sink with a glass in his hand, the tap running and running until the water overflows in the glass, and Taekwoon's free fingers become white on the edge of the counter.

"You should've let me drink the rest," Hongbin says with jumbled words.

"Drink this instead," Taekwoon replies, holding the glass to Hongbin's mouth, and Hongbin swallows obediently, fresh tears stinging his eyes as he looks at Taekwoon's distressed, sleepy face. He grabs the hem of Taekwoon's creased T-shirt above the waistband of his grey sweatpants, curling his fingers into the fabric like a small child into his mother's skirt.

Taekwoon holds the glass until Hongbin drinks all the water up, and Hongbin chuckles when he feels more nauseous from the _water_ than from almost half a litre of whisky. Taekwoon sets the empty glass on the coffee table in front of the couch, fishing out a tissue from the pocket of his sweatpants, reaching it out for Hongbin, probably to blow his nose and wipe the snot off his face. Hongbin does it willingly, thinking about how Taekwoon used to do this all the time when he saw him crying, and the thought feels like a knife in the chest.

He clenches his fist and the tissue in it, his arm dropping down as he looks up at Taekwoon with his nose suddenly feeling stuffy. There's something on Taekwoon's face that looks like sadness, but Hongbin doesn't let himself believe that, he doesn't really want to give himself false hopes, but then, why is he here if that's not what he's doing right now?

Taekwoon disappears into the bedroom for a few minutes, and Hongbin dozes off a little until he returns with his own dry clothes and a towel which he reaches out for Hongbin silently, sitting down on the rug in front of the couch, running a hand through his hair. Hongbin holds the T-shirt, sweatpants and towel like he has the finest silk in his hands and it takes him an awkwardly long time to clumsily peel off his own clothes to replace them with Taekwoon's. He tosses the wet garments onto the floor, sitting quietly on the couch afterwards, lets the thought that he’s wearing Taekwoon's clothes again sink in.

"Why are you here, Bin-ah?" Taekwoon asks so quietly it's barely a whisper.

Hongbin smiles, blinking languidly.

"I like it when you call me Bin-ah," he says.

Taekwoon doesn't reply, only stares at him intently like he's on the verge of crying, too, or maybe he just wants to scream in annoyance, but Taekwoon's never been the type to scream. He sure yells a lot when he's angry, but never when someone looks more upset than him, and Hongbin suspects 'upset' is nowhere near the perfect term to describe his own feelings at the moment.

"Why are you here?" Taekwoon repeats, face twisting as he pulls his knees up to his chest.

"I wanted to see you."

Taekwoon glances at the clock on the wall. "At two in the morning on a Wednesday?"

"I want to see you all the time," Hongbin whispers, crying anew. At this point it feels like his tears are taking breaks every three minutes or so, just to make him realize how pathetic he is when he starts crying again.

Taekwoon doesn't say anything, only reaches out for the quilt on the armrest of the couch, unfolding it and wrapping it around Hongbin's shoulders. Hongbin stares at him all the while, trying to focus on his face, noticing how Taekwoon swallows four times in a row, blinking fast when he settles back into his original position.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Hongbin asks in a shaky voice, his words still almost incomprehensible. "That guy you sent back inside?"

"You can sleep here," Taekwoon says instead, and, although Hongbin is sure the answer is 'yes', he's happy Taekwoon doesn't say it aloud. False hopes are hopes, too.

"I love you still," Hongbin says.

"Don't say that."

"But I love you," Hongbin insists, again feeling like a kid. "I love you and I loved you and I will love you forever."

Taekwoon lets out a sigh, looking down at the floor. He sniffles, but Hongbin knows he's not going to cry yet—sniffling is his way of holding tears back.

"We're too different," he says eventually.

"Is that such a big problem?"

Taekwoon glances back up at him, and Hongbin knows he's thinking about their last fight, when they quarrelled about Taekwoon's parents handling Hongbin like shit and Taekwoon still taking their side, and Hongbin threw several bowls and glasses against the wall until he stepped on a particularly sharp piece of glass, cutting his foot open, walking out of this very apartment with blood pooling inside his right shoe. He wishes that would have been their toughest fight or the only one, but that was just the icing on the shitcake, the one that concluded with them shouting hurtful things at each other through the phone, deciding to part ways and never meet again.  
Yet Hongbin is here, was literally on his knees before Taekwoon, crawled back to him like a hideous slug to the cabbages after he got thrown out of the vegetable garden.

"We can't do it together, Hongbin, you know that, too," Taekwoon says. "We were slowly killing each other."

"I'm rotting away anyway," Hongbin replies desperately. "If I have to die, I want you to be the thing that kills me."

"I want you to live as long as you can," Taekwoon whispers, pressing a hand on his eyes for a moment like he's trying to physically push back the tears.

"I don't want to live a second longer without you," Hongbin says, thinking back on the car that almost ran over him earlier that night.

"If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you so I'll say let's start it over, then please, stop, Hongbin. I'm not going to base a relationship on pity."

A hiccup escapes Hongbin's throat, sounding too much like a sob. He rubs at his eyes with the backs of his hands, leaving his eyes dry and his hands wet.

"I just want you so bad," he breathes, reaching out for Taekwoon's hand, but Taekwoon doesn't let him hold it. When he realizes Taekwoon won't touch him, he lowers his head, presses his arm against his stomach to keep himself together.

"You need to sleep," Taekwoon says, clearing his throat right after. His voice is shaky when he speaks again. "I'll take you home when you wake up."

" _You_ are my home." Hongbin looks up at him, the tears blurring the outlines of Taekwoon's face. "I'm just suffering and feel sorry for myself, I— you're the only thing I need and if having you back means that I'll die soon or go crazy, then I need you back to take me apart and end this whole thing."

There's the noise of a rapid inhalation like Taekwoon is really going to cry this time and his eyes are shinier than they were before, the edges getting red as tears collect in the corners of them. He shuts his eyes, and rests his forehead on his knees just like how Hongbin did back on the street.

"I just can't do that," Taekwoon mumbles. "I can't be with you, we were— it felt like everything was crumbling, you were wilting by my side and I was burning up, I was angry all the time, it— it wasn't healthy for either of us, and no matter how much I love you—" Hongbin flinches on the couch, touches Taekwoon's hair, but Taekwoon pulls back and looks up at him with his glinting eyes brimming with tears, "—no matter how much I loved you, I hated every day we spent together."

"Taekwoon—"

"No, I'm... I'm not going to fall for this, Bin-ah," he says, choking on the last syllable, quickly wiping off the tears that escape. "I don't want to destroy you. All I'm asking is that you stop trying to destroy me in return and grow up already. For your sake as well as mine."

Hongbin breaks down, his tears now refusing to die down for even just a second. He feels so numb yet everything is so sharp to his senses, especially the ache that spreads inside his body; he's exhausted but doesn't want to get a wink of sleep, because when he closes his eyes, he won't be able to see Taekwoon, and that hurts more than anything he can imagine.

"You— you said you still l-love me," he stutters out, trying to silence the crying noises he makes. He glances at the closed bedroom door, feels outraged that the guy inside won't come out to check if Taekwoon is okay, to see why Hongbin, for him a stranger, is crying his heart out in Taekwoon's living room. He hates that the dude doesn't even try to appear concerned. He looks back at Taekwoon who stands up and averts his eyes immediately.

It's a sudden decision, Hongbin doesn't think much before he shrugs off the quilt, standing up as well, holding onto Taekwoon's upper arms, both to keep himself on his feet and to prevent Taekwoon from moving away. Once he's sure he won't fall and Taekwoon won't go anywhere, he slides his arms around Taekwoon's waist tentatively, resting his head on his shoulder, pressing his nose to Taekwoon's neck. He still smells the same, never wanted to change his favourite perfume and the scent still sticks to his skin like it always did, no matter how hard or long he scrubbed at it under the shower. Taekwoon is warm, but he shivers when Hongbin presses his face to his neck, winces like he's just now noticing that Hongbin's hair is still wet. He stands unmoving, trembling lightly, letting Hongbin hold him for a few more moments, and Hongbin is sure he's going to push him away.

Taekwoon's hands, however, touch Hongbin's back, caress him gently, keep him there until Taekwoon fully embraces him, pressing his cheek to Hongbin's head.

"Love me," Hongbin thinks he whispers, but he's not sure if the words actually leave his mouth. He's being so pathetic and selfish, he knows he is but just can't give a damn, because this is the last time he can be so, Taekwoon won't want to see him again after this night, he will slam the door into his face if Hongbin drops by again, sober or drunk.

His lips brush against Taekwoon's jaw, and probably before Taekwoon could think better of it, they're kissing slowly, softly, unlike the way they used to when they were together, when all the feelings layered on top of love were hatred and contempt, when their only intention was to drown the other, to take away each other's feelings.

The kiss lasts until Hongbin's knees buckle with exertion, and his last memory is of the way Taekwoon lays him down on the couch, covering him with the quilt, petting his damp hair until Hongbin falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to talk to me about any of my stories or just vixx in general on [tumblr](http://hongbab.tumblr.com/), [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/hongbab) or [aff](http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1061753) ♡ please support me on [ko-fi.com](https://ko-fi.com/hongbab) if you can ♡


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